In the trailer for Sui Dhaaga — Made in India, director Sharat Kataria weaves the dreams, desires, destiny and doom of a small town working class community into a pastiche of struggle and hope.
In his directorial debut Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Kataria took on body-shaming. His plus-sized heroine (Bhumi Padnekar) was at peace in her large body even when her husband was ashamed to be seen with a woman so overweight. This is Kataria’s universe of heroes who don’t emerge from the shadows to claim fame.
In Sui Dhaaga, he takes on hierarchical humiliation with powerfully drawn characters who exude a sense of self worth in their state of worthlessness.
Varun Dhawan, again in the October spirit, plays Mauji — a tailor who in the absence of financial resources to support his own enterprise works for an employer who repeatedly shames him. Egged on by his quietly stubborn wife Mamta (Anushka Sharma, deglamourized with a purpose) Mauji begins his own tailoring business as he is showered by taunts and disbelief by those all around him.
It is a heart-warming homage to the spirit of self-employment wrung out of the blood and sweat of the working class. There are no pretences to doing something noble in the characters.
Dhawan’s Mauji seems only motivated by his silently supportive wife. It is a blessing to have actors like Dhawan and Sharma coming forward to explore a treatise on self-completeness.
It is not a glamorous world. But a world we could walk right into and come away with emotions that we would find hard to ignore.
